Site Search Navigation

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

The Science of a Happy Marriage

By Tara Parker-Pope May 10, 2010 5:07 pmMay 10, 2010 5:07 pm

Stuart Bradford

Why do some men and women cheat on their partners while others resist the temptation?

To find the answer, a growing body of research is focusing on the science of commitment. Scientists are studying everything from the biological factors that seem to influence marital stability to a person’s psychological response after flirting with a stranger.

Their findings suggest that while some people may be naturally more resistant to temptation, men and women can also train themselves to protect their relationships and raise their feelings of commitment.

Recent studies have raised questions about whether genetic factors may influence commitment and marital stability. Hasse Walum, a biologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, studied 552 sets of twins to learn more about a gene related to the body’s regulation of the brain chemical vasopressin, a bonding hormone.

Over all, men who carried a variation in the gene were less likely to be married, and those who had wed were more likely to have had serious marital problems and unhappy wives. Among men who carried two copies of the gene variant, about a third had experienced a serious relationship crisis in the past year, double the number seen in the men who did not carry the variant.

Although the trait is often called the “fidelity gene,” Mr. Walum called that a misnomer: his research focused on marital stability, not faithfulness. “It’s difficult to use this information to predict any future behavior in men,” he told me. Now he and his colleagues are working to replicate the findings and conducting similar research in women.

While there may be genetic differences that influence commitment, other studies suggest that the brain can be trained to resist temptation.

A series of unusual studies led by John Lydon, a psychologist at McGill University in Montreal, have looked at how people in a committed relationship react in the face of temptation. In one study, highly committed married men and women were asked to rate the attractiveness of people of the opposite sex in a series of photos. Not surprisingly, they gave the highest ratings to people who would typically be viewed as attractive.

Later, they were shown similar pictures and told that the person was interested in meeting them. In that situation, participants consistently gave those pictures lower scores than they had the first time around.

When they were attracted to someone who might threaten the relationship, they seemed to instinctively tell themselves, “He’s not so great.” “The more committed you are,” Dr. Lydon said, “the less attractive you find other people who threaten your relationship.”

But some of the McGill research has shown gender differences in how we respond to a cheating threat. In a study of 300 heterosexual men and women, half the participants were primed for cheating by imagining a flirtatious conversation with someone they found attractive. The other half just imagined a routine encounter.

Afterward, the study subjects were asked to complete fill-in-the-blank puzzles like LO_AL and THR__T.

Unbeknownst to the participants, the word fragments were a psychological test to reveal subconscious feelings about commitment. (Similar word puzzles are used to study subconscious feelings about prejudice and stereotyping.)

No pattern emerged among the study participants who imagined a routine encounter. But there were differences among men and women who had entertained the flirtatious fantasy. In that group, the men were more likely to complete the puzzles with the neutral words LOCAL and THROAT. But the women who had imagined flirting were far more likely to choose LOYAL and THREAT, suggesting that the exercise had touched off subconscious concerns about commitment.

Of course, this does not necessarily predict behavior in the real world. But the pronounced difference in responses led the researchers to think women might have developed a kind of early warning system to alert them to relationship threats.

Other McGill studies confirmed differences in how men and women react to such threats. In one, attractive actors or actresses were brought in to flirt with study participants in a waiting room. Later, the participants were asked questions about their relationships, particularly how they would respond to a partner’s bad behavior, like being late and forgetting to call.

Men who had just been flirting were less forgiving of the hypothetical bad behavior, suggesting that the attractive actress had momentarily chipped away at their commitment. But women who had been flirting were more likely to be forgiving and to make excuses for the man, suggesting that their earlier flirting had triggered a protective response when discussing their relationship.

“We think the men in these studies may have had commitment, but the women had the contingency plan — the attractive alternative sets off the alarm bell,” Dr. Lydon said. “Women implicitly code that as a threat. Men don’t.”

The question is whether a person can be trained to resist temptation. In another study, the team prompted male students who were in committed dating relationships to imagine running into an attractive woman on a weekend when their girlfriends were away. Some of the men were then asked to develop a contingency plan by filling in the sentence “When she approaches me, I will __________ to protect my relationship.”

Because the researchers could not bring in a real woman to act as a temptation, they created a virtual-reality game in which two out of four rooms included subliminal images of an attractive woman. The men who had practiced resisting temptation gravitated toward those rooms 25 percent of the time; for the others, the figure was 62 percent.

But it may not be feelings of love or loyalty that keep couples together. Instead, scientists speculate that your level of commitment may depend on how much a partner enhances your life and broadens your horizons — a concept that Arthur Aron, a psychologist and relationship researcher at Stony Brook University, calls “self-expansion.”

To measure this quality, couples are asked a series of questions: How much does your partner provide a source of exciting experiences? How much has knowing your partner made you a better person? How much do you see your partner as a way to expand your own capabilities?

The Stony Brook researchers conducted experiments using activities that stimulated self-expansion. Some couples were given mundane tasks, while others took part in a silly exercise in which they were tied together and asked to crawl on mats, pushing a foam cylinder with their heads. The study was rigged so the couples failed the time limit on the first two tries, but just barely made it on the third, resulting in much celebration.

Couples were given relationship tests before and after the experiment. Those who had taken part in the challenging activity posted greater increases in love and relationship satisfaction than those who had not experienced victory together.

Now the researchers are embarking on a series of studies to measure how self-expansion influences a relationship. They theorize that couples who explore new places and try new things will tap into feelings of self-expansion, lifting their level of commitment.

“We enter relationships because the other person becomes part of ourselves, and that expands us,” Dr. Aron said. “That’s why people who fall in love stay up all night talking and it feels really exciting. We think couples can get some of that back by doing challenging and exciting things together.”

I wonder how much the temptation to cheat arises out of problems that were present from the beginning of the relationship that continue to be ignored, problems that exist either due to incompatibility between partners or between their expectations for the relationship.

Man in a state of nature would not cheat — he would just procreate and spread his seed with his genes as often as possible with as many women as possible. (Hobbs.)

But, we are not in a state of nature and civilization makes certain demands counter to one’s natural proclivities. So, we are asked to forgo our inbreed desires. Asked? Yes — but men often stray (~50% in the U. S.); women: probably
about 40% and catching up to the other gender.

Class, culture and time are important variables. (It is said that the middle class adheres to sexual morality rules; the lower and upper, the least — well, in Weastern countries.)

As a man and having spoken to other married or otherwise committed men, sans the infatuation period, I would estimate that 99.9% would desire to have sexual relations with any woman he sees whom he is attracted to (often, attraction is not fully required) but if he abstains he does so due to fear of getting caught, or ethical. religious, or moral prohibitions. (Freud: the developed superego.)

We want sex for pleasure and often forget why the desire is so strong — Mother Nature wants our species to continue.

So, the appropriate question is not WHY people commit adultery. The more salient question is HOW we are able to suppress this quite powerful primal drive?

Former quite religious and moral President Jimmy Carter said in his famous PLAYBOY interview, “I cheat in my heart.” It was in the 1970’s and Americans were shocked. (As the French were shocked that Americans were shocked.)

Commitment and loyalty are at the heart of a stable relationship. Open Marriage is an oxymoron, but still the boundaries of couplehood [coupleitis?] are as diverse in manifestation, rules and expansive possibilities as circumstance and taste will allow. What’s egregious flirting for one pair may be may be harmless socializing for another.
How to study such social phenomena and adjust for age, zodiac sign, enneagram typing, weather, background, health, social status, tomato/tomahto preference, top/bottom, cultural norms, impulses, spiritual tradition, family history and whether anybody had their fingers crossed during the experiment seems like tenuous research at best…
Even if it’s vasopressin that my gene’s expressin’,
I’m confessin’ there still ain’t no repressin’
My undressin’ or commitment that needs redressin’
And that’s the lesson.

The genetic theory seems extremely reasonable to me. My old flame, a charming man whose father had left his mother before he was born, had a terrible roving eye and shamelessly flirted with other women in my presence. After I reconnected with him decades later I learned he’d gone through a messy divorce and a series of difficult long distance relationships with women. He blamed his childhoood experience, but I suspected a deeper reason. My strong hunch is this man carriesat least one and possibly two copies of the variant gene.

When our children were young, my husband’s and my child-raising “Bible” was a book by Dr. Dotson. He told us to make a distinction between words and actions — to teach our children that they could say whatever they wanted to say, but they couldn’t do whatever they wanted to do.

I know that’s oversimplifying, especially today when bullying words can be as harmful as a push. But as a general rule of child raising, it worked well and I think it helped my grown children learn the discipline of resisting the temptation to act if that act may be harmful.

I remember going to a parent-teacher conference for our then third-grade son. The teacher described this child to us that was a model of good behavior. My husband and I looked at each other in confusion and said to the teacher at almost the same time: “Are you sure you’re talking about our son?”

She said that indeed she was and that she knew exactly why we were confused. She said we were no doubt the type of parents who let our child de-stress at home by expressing himself in words any way he wanted, whether it be expressing anger or frustration or disappointment. She said that kids who were allowed to do this were much better equipped to control their actions when they were out in the world.

I have just published a book inspired by a marriage that lasts. In this case almost fifty years. Title: Glistenings — Till Death Do Us Part. You can read about it on the websitehttp://www.glisteningsokelly.com. As a poet, former minister-counselor, I can tell you this is a poignant love story — from the joys of days of courtship to the last days of struggling with cancer. I’m aware of a lot of literature in the love & living and death & dying category. This little book promises to make a real contribution — if those wanting to get a handle on “what love is” actually read it.

Couples were given relationship tests before and after the experiment. Those who had taken part in the challenging activity posted greater increases in love and relationship satisfaction than those who had not experienced victory together.

Really? I think what this shows is that these “relationship tests” are highly subjective and easily influenced by a number of external factors.

Whoever came up with these “relationship tests” should probably go back to the drawing board and develop new, more scientifically meaningful and valid tests.

People were not meant to have ONE sexual partner for the rest of their lives, no matter how they feel about them at the moment. We are simply not genetically wired that way.

Marriage, and the resultant demand for fidelity, was a construct put together by churches, approved by governments, and endorsed wholeheartedly by women. Most men with a working pair of testicles despise the concept.

Allow me to quote my father, 86, who has been married to my mother for 61 years, and said this to me on their 40th anniversary: “Kiddo, let me tell you that after 40 years of marriage, grabbing your wife’s ass is just like grabbing your own.”

I cheated on my first husband, with my second husband. My first husband ignored me throughout nine years of marriage, except when he would get drunk and yell at me and threaten to divorce me. He never wanted to spend time together, nor did he care about anything that was going on in my world. I can’t begin to imagine anymore why we got married in the first place. My second husband shares many of my interests and will patiently listen when I am excited about something he’s not interested in. We talk all the time, share plans and activities, and I think of him as my best friend. I would never in a million years consider straying from him. Hmm, I wonder if I had that cheating gene and it went away? Or maybe the first one was just a jerk.

From the descriptions given of the surveys in the report, not one survey contained two groups of women, one told the net wealth and annual income of the male, and a control female group not given that information. Thus, all the surveys of women are irrelevant and invalid. There is no valid result from surveying females about males when the vital data of a male’s net wealth and annual income are excluded. The researcher’s might as well ask the females what they think of stars in Andromeda Galaxy, or chestnut shells, or something equally meaningless to females.

Excuse me, but if I were tied to an attractive man and asked to roll about on the floor rather than complete mundane tasks with him, I would certainly be more “loyal” after the mat-rolling. It’s simple chemistry.

As for the word game, while reading the article I instinctively chose “loyal” and “threat” without imagining anything beforehand…perhaps women choose these words automatically, while men automatically choose “local” (rather than “loyal” as statistics on male fidelity might suggest) and “throat” (as in “deep”).

If your wife cheats on you and gets pregnant, and then you get divorced, in many states, you will have to pay support for that child.

In many states, if your wife is a batterer, YOU will be arrested if you call the police, if you are in a mandatory arrest, “dominant aggressor” state.

Most surveys of health among divorced people ignore the elephant in the room – the children. If a man has his children abducted by their mother, with the help of law enforcement, is it any surprise he would suffer stress-related illness after divorce?

More confirmation bias pretending to be “science” in the vast polluted cesspool of psychological “literature”. Just what is needed….

This study is only for heterosexual couples. Would it carry over for my two dads?

FROM TPP — They haven’t studied gay couples in this study but other research suggests that much of the literature on marriage can be applied to gay couples. Not all however. Some studies show that gay couples are better at conflict resolution than straight couples.

I instinctively chose “local” and “thrift” – but then I like to wander around the neighborhood visiting second-hand shops. I am a woman. My dad also used to love doing this. He was a man. DD’s comment is very annoying. I think he has a narrow world view. I believe that women feel just as constrained by marriage as men do much of the time. The last six paragraphs, about valuing partners who help us to expand ourselves – that makes a lot of sense to me. And it works both ways, gender-wise.

IMHO–the only surefire way for a man to be faithful is to have had sex with a lot, (I mean a lot, triple digits), of women before getting married. On the altar, you must know that the grass isn’t greener.

The couples I always think are asking for trouble are the high school or college sweethearts who get married young. If you haven’t sampled the buffet, you will always fight the feeling that the party has passed you by.

I can’t speak for faithfulness in a woman but I suspect my theory holds true there as well.

Much has been made of so-called “hard wired” mating behavior by evolutionary psychologists that we have overlooked the role that conscious choice plays in people’s lives.

The argument presented in some comments above that humans are programmed to not be monogamous (based on what we know of sexual attraction) holds as much instructive value as that we are hard-wired to eat sugar and fat. Nobody would argue that desires to consume high calorie foods are meant to be indulged in all situations. The missing factor is behavioral self-regulation which comes from values and awareness.

If human mating were to follow a pure version of the evo-psych formula all women would have as many children as possible with as many random partners as they could. Sound appealing?

Monogamy may not always be the best arrangement, however it seems to be succesful based on what most people have historically valued. What might those values be? From my observations:

a) Robust, committed and stable parental unit
b) Unambigous ancestry and family structure
c) Greater social power based on family and community role
d) Less individual isolation
e) Long-term interpersonal growth
f) Better division of labor than single or single parent households

If we value these above the quick payoff of a gratifying romantic or sexual encounter there is reason to practice a little discipline.